1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to movable body apparatus, pattern formation apparatus and exposure apparatus, and device manufacturing methods, and more particularly, to a movable body apparatus equipped with a movable body which substantially moves along a predetermined plane, a pattern formation apparatus which forms a pattern on an object mounted on a movable body, an exposure apparatus which forms a pattern on an object by irradiating an energy beam, and a device manufacturing method which uses the exposure apparatus.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, in a lithography process for manufacturing electron devices (microdevices) such as semiconductor devices (such as integrated circuits) and liquid crystal display devices, exposure apparatuses such as a projection exposure apparatus by a step-and-repeat method (a so-called stepper) and a projection exposure apparatus by a step-and-scan method (a so-called scanning stepper (which is also called a scanner) are mainly used.
However, the surface of a substrate subject to exposure such as a wafer, a glass plate or the like (hereinafter generally referred to as a wafer) is not always flat, for example, by undulation and the like of the wafer. Therefore, especially in a scanning exposure apparatus such as a scanner and the like, when a reticle pattern is transferred onto a shot area on a wafer by a scanning exposure method, positional information (focus information) related to an optical axis direction of a projection optical system of the wafer surface is detected at a plurality of detection points set in an exposure area, for example, using a multiple point focal point position detection system (hereinafter also referred to as a “multipoint AF system”) and the like, and based on the detection results, a so-called focus leveling control is performed (for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,332) to control the position in the optical axis direction and the inclination of a table or a stage holding a wafer so that the wafer surface constantly coincides with an image plane of the projection optical system in the exposure area (the wafer surface is within the focal depth of the image plane).
Further, with the stepper or the scanner and the like, wavelength of exposure light used with finer integrated circuits is becoming shorter year by year, and numerical aperture of the projection optical system is also gradually increasing (higher NA), which improves the resolution. Meanwhile, due to shorter wavelength of the exposure light and higher NA in the projection optical system, the depth of focus had become extremely small, which caused a risk of focus margin shortage during the exposure operation. Therefore, as a method of substantially shortening the exposure wavelength while substantially increasing (widening) the depth of focus when compared with the depth of focus in the air, the exposure apparatus that uses the immersion method has recently begun to gather attention (refer to, U.S. patent Application Publication No. 2005/0259234).
However, in the exposure apparatus using this liquid immersion method or other exposure apparatus whose distance (working distance) between the lower end surface of the projection optical system and the wafer is small, it is difficult to place the multipoint AF system in the vicinity of the projection optical system. Meanwhile, in the exposure apparatus, in order to realize exposure with high precision, performing the focus leveling control described above with high precision in a stable manner is required.